The Last Day of the War
by Burial Ground
Summary: On the last day of the war, an Orc at the beginning of his life as a warrior meets a veteran at the end of his journey.
1. Daybreak

There was a war outside. It hadn't quite made its way to the caverns and with some luck never would, but inside there was a hurried bustle as the slaves tore still developing Orcs out of their earth cocoons to quickly put more soldiers on the battlefield. The method was faster and more effective than natural birth, but it wasn't capable of miracles; some of the Orcs were not fit to live as they fell out of the mud only halfway complete, and even the more developed ones gasped pathetically for breath in the stale air of the birthing cave.

One of these hapless survivors was still covered in wet earth when the slaves began to attach a quickly assembled suit of armour to him with worn straps. His eyes were full of drying mud and his ears full of shouting and general noise echoing through the cave, and even though as a cocoon-born he already had language to speak, he was so dazed by the chaos that he let the slaves do everything without a word of protest or question.

"That's a small one, isn't it," muttered one of the slaves and put a helmet on his head.

"He'll have plenty of time to grow bigger if he can make it out of this one alive," said another and slapped a sword on his hand.

"We'll see if he can," mused a third one after a moment of appraising silence and grabbed the earthborn's arm. "Well then, off to the battlefield with you."

The newborn stumbled like a toddler after the Orc holding his arm, his sword dragging behind him uselessly. "Wh... where..." he slurred. He tried to glance over his shoulder at the warm pit in the ground, the only cradle that he would ever have, but he could no longer recognise the one that had been his.

"Now now, you don't have to trouble yourself with that. You just go over there and out and follow the others. When you feel His power, you won't even have to wonder how to fight," the slave explained. He shook his head. "Power's certainly what you need. Try to at least stay alive for a couple of minutes, squirt." Then he turned back, already forgetting the squirt. "That was the last one! All slaves out and to the safe place!"

For a moment the newborn stared stupidly ahead before the words 'there' and 'out' became clearer to him and he was able to follow their advice. His thoughts slowly but surely becoming clearer as well, he staggered through the corridor of the cave towards the dim light.

The din got deafening long before he got outside. The steady stream of Orcs marching outside laughed, shouted and stomped as though trying to scare their enemy out of some subterranean hiding place. Their numbers seemed endless, an unbroken current flowing past the cave, and the newborn had a hard time finding a place where he could join in. 'His', whoever that was, power still hadn't taken over him. Perhaps one could only get it after showing bravery of his own? That was all the Orc could think of, so for a moment he gathered his courage and then quickly dashed at the host.

"Oi, are you trying to trip someone?" a strange voice immediately barked near his ear. "This is a serious situation, in case you hadn't happened to notice. What's your number?"

"Number?" the newborn asked, head spinning. Following the slave's advice had not particularly made his suddenly initiated life easier.

"For the... have you even got a name?"

"I... don't think I do," the Orc answered, even more confused. Was he supposed to have got a name, too? Maybe it was his own fault that he hadn't thought to ask for one.

"Not another one!" growled the other Orc. "How in the name of the Nazgûl are we to win this war if all the untrained and half-dead are sent to the battlefield for real soldiers to trip over? Even those feeble-minded goblin brats cause more destruction among the enemy." He slowed down, glaring at the newborn running after him. "I don't suppose they expected you to stay alive, and it's not hard to see why. Fortunately we've got a suitable generic name for ones like you, however, so you be Snaga then. Can you remember that?"

Named Snaga without any finer ceremonies than that, the newborn finally took a good look at the other Orc. Red eyes looked back from a tired face, framed by even redder, greasy hair. "Snaga..."

"Slave, yes. A different kind of slave than the ones who helped you into this world, but it's a suitable name for you. I should probably be grateful that you can at least talk."

The name was meant for the useless and the weak, but it belonged to Snaga now, and this Orc had given it to him. "Have you got a name too?"

The red Orc blinked as though he had truly never in his lifetime expected to witness such ignorance. "Do I look like a slave?" Snaga looked at him so long and so sincerely that he found it hard to get angrier. "Well I'm not one anymore. I'm Krazum, and that's a name I've earned with blood and sweat."

Snaga nodded. Perhaps then he too could get a name of his own, chosen with careful thought. And now that the matter had been cleared for him, he thought to ask about the reason for the march. "Why are we here?"

"Is it the meaning of life you're trying to ponder there or don't you know what we're on our way to do?"

"I don't know what we're on our way to do."

Krazum grimaced. "Give me strength. The blighter's kicked straight from cradle to grave, and the poor devil doesn't even know anything about anything. At least try to walk faster. No one will miss you if you fall behind," he muttered and immediately slowed down so Snaga could stay by his side. "We're at war here, and it's an important one too. We're headed for mass destruction if we don't win."

Snaga stared at Krazum, eyes wide open. "I can't... I don't know how to fight."

"But at least I didn't have to explain to you what war is. Seems that you're an Orc after all," Krazum marvelled. "And don't worry about it. When you feel His power, you'll forget all of your fear and other useless things. I'm sure you'll think of a use for that sword of yours as well and incidentally for Morgoth's sake stop dragging it along the ground, or you'll ruin the blade right away."

Wincing, Snaga lifted his sword; indeed, being a heavy one, it had already fallen to the ground in his weak hands. He couldn't even imagine killing with a weapon that he could barely carry. To be truthful, he couldn't even imagine killing with anything at all. "Whose power am I supposed to feel?"

There was now a clear tone of pity in Krazum's sigh. "The Dark Lord's, whose eye of fire always sees us. You'll understand when it happens; the sun goes dark and a red mist falls. Nothing matters anymore, and you'll even give your life for his sake."

Snaga gave Krazum a wary glance from the corner of his eye. The Dark Lord sounded terrifying, but in that last sentence had been something zealous and willing that frightened him even more. Krazum said no more, only stared straight ahead, and his silence forced Snaga to once more notice around them the din that made earth itself shake. It frightened him to think what would happen if he were to fall here among a host that was capable of such things. "A lot of noise," he laughed nervously.

"There's supposed to be," answered Krazum.

The answer was interesting. It sounded like behind it hid a story that might keep the noise at bay. "Why is there supposed to be?"

"You want a bedtime story?" Krazum asked, but his tone wasn't biting. For the first time, he grinned. "It _is_ a suitable story for an Orc, one that has no happy end." Then he began, and somehow, with mere words, he was capable of conjuring away the battle and the field and the violent death awaiting them. It was a dreadful story, for Snaga could tell that behind the shape of a tale and poetic words lurked a truth. Krazum told him of the history of the Orcs, of the Dark Lord and the one who came before him, the creator of Orcs; he told of the terrifying light that in all its shapes turned its back on Orcs, and of monsters that had planted the world full of things that hated Orcs.

"And so even the stars of the sky are made of a light that is strange to us, and they look down on us in hatred; the trees, too, have been shaped by hands that would grip our throats." Krazum's eyes gleamed as he neared the end. "The Dark Lord is a wall around us, covered with spikes on both sides; a word spoken in anger, thundering louder than any other. When a tree hums in pain when we are near, he shuts our ears from its sound. When the eye of the sky pierces the darkness of the night, he dulls our pain and horror..." Krazum blinked and was once more in the present. "...but we'll have to wait a little more for that. This noise drowns everything else. Let the earth itself scream, the thunder of our footsteps is stronger. We march towards the enemy in his name, and he gives us peace."

Shivering a little, Snaga pondered the zeal that had once again slowly risen in Krazum's voice. The words implied that an Orc's part in life was always hard, but the tone was longing and worshipful. It occurred to Snaga that perhaps Krazum wished for death. The concept was absurd to an Orc just at the beginning of his life, fearing war and dying in it, but he couldn't think of any other reason for such strange behaviour.

"If I make it out of this..." Krazum said so quiently that Snaga only barely heard him. "I'll go back to Mordor. Elsewhere one can always fell trees and enemies, but no arrow can fly to the stars. In that place grow no trees or enemies, and the stars can't see us through the darkness. It's always quiet in Mordor."

A shout travelled from the head of the host to its tail: the enemy had been seen and engaged in battle. Krazum and Snaga marched faster, one hungering for the battle and the other fearing it.

"My place is in the frontlines," Krazum said. The strange burning had returned to his eyes. "You stay farther away and you'll live longer."

Snaga shuddered as if with fever. The sword and fear of death weighed heavy on him, paralysing both body and mind. As his last hope, he tugged at the sleeve poking out of the pieces of Krazum's armour before the older Orc could get too far away from him. "If I'm still alive after this... if I survive..."

"Don't worry," Krazum said, smiling at last. "You won't."


	2. Broken Current

Funny how the violence and profanity feel far more graphic now that I've translated this into English... best to change the rating, I think.

* * *

Truth be told, Snaga had expected something more violent. It could be the result of his own weak nature working against him, but he had expected Sauron's will to crush him with its far greater strength as the Dark Lord's own soldiers would do, and it had simply only swallowed him whole. It didn't hurt him. It didn't frighten him. His fragile body was filled with power that wasn't his own, and the falling mist engulfed the world that was the enemy of all his kin.

Some of the enemies charged astride their mounts through the Orkish lines, confident that their horses granted them superiority in battle. They did manage to cause a lot of damage indeed, but bloodthirsty soldiers soon tore all that they could grasp from their saddles, and then to pieces. Horses reared in panic and ran from the Orcs like animal from another animal, prey from predator.

_"my will be done"_

Snaga shivered. He barely heard the sound of the arrow flying past his ear with a hiss, let alone the sound made by the Orc it pierced a blink of an eye later. Someone managed to get his hands on the archer, but not take his life. Orc and Man struggled a while as equals until the Man overcame his enemy, laying his knife on the Orc's throat. _"That one is mine."_ Snaga ran towards them, filled with the rage of his lord, rage that burned like despair. He would tear off the Man's head, he would do it to all Men he saw here. He would do it in Sauron's great name. This world would be emptied of light and of enemies, and under the sky peace and silence would reign.

_"let there be darkness"_

And there was darkness. It was not the comforting darkness of earth and night, but an emptiness that cut without warning, dulling the senses. It blinded and maimed and was abruptly gone, leaving aimless turmoil in its wake. The connection broke; it was as though a rope had been cut and an enormous, suffocating curtain had fallen upon the army. Someone screamed in horror. Fear stole the breath out of the throats of many others. The Man that Snaga had been aiming for had cut the Orc's throat and now stood stunned amidst enemies that fled, their will to fight taken from them. Others took advantage of the opportunity and cut down several Orcs, now so easy to defeat.

This time Snaga heard the din of death around him with perfect clarity. He felt the burning gaze of the Sun upon himself. The sword had once more become too heavy for his frail arms; he left it there on the ground, turned around and ran.

* * *

Krazum awoke in the mass grave under several other bodies. For one stunned moment, his head throbbing where it was wounded, he tried to determine the exact number by the weight of the corpses and the number of blunt armour edges digging into his flesh. Reality, however, returned quickly and mercilessly, forcing him to think of more important things.

_"The corpses have not been lit. Will be soon, no doubt."_ Both his legs felt numb. There was far more weight on them. Weight that he wouldn't be able to lift before freeing his upper body. _"If I dig my way out before that, the bastards will attack me. If I wait for them to leave, I'll burn to death."_

To his astonishment, he realised he was still holding his sword. It was important to him, but he had not expected that he would be able to hold on to it even after losing consciousness. His left arm had more room to move, and he carefully began to pull it to his side first. The strap of his arm guard was caught in the better attached armour of the corpse lying on it, and the worn leather broke with a dry snap. _"All the better gear always goes to the Uruks,"_ Krazum thought dully, and yanked his arm to his body. The corpse fell into the empty space it had left behind. _"And they must have heard that one, given that it's so quiet here."_

Indeed, why was it quiet on a battlefield? Had the strap not made a sound as it broke, Krazum would have suspected that his wound had somehow robbed him of his hearing. No one screamed. No one stomped. No one died. The absence of sound was nothing like Mordor's comforting silence, not even a harbinger of the end; it was the moment in which Krazum's universe fell silent mercilessly and irreversibly, now that everything had been lost. Krazum's eyes widened in horror as he stared up at the corpses that kept the sky out of his sight. _"Sky..."_ But the sky saw him, the stars of the sky saw him, and for one terrible blink of an eye he too saw them. _"He's gone."_ It had happened. The burning eye of Barad-dûr had gone out. The war had been fought and lost and left Krazum behind in this world.

_"And still I have to get out of here."_ Krazum's life was not his own, and he had no permission to throw it away even if he wanted to do so. And now he wanted to, more than ever. _"Although there's no longer any reason to do so, although my body is ruined..."_ The sword-gash between Krazum's eyes burned. The back of his head throbbed where it had hit the ground as he had fallen. _"Fly eggs in the wound. Skull fractures. Diseases, infections, permanent injuries."_

Krazum pushed one corpse out of his way, and the strength and swiftness the motion demanded stirred the pain until it was an agony that tore the insides of his head. The next two dead ones were lighter, but in return Krazum's strength became lesser and lesser. The brightest stars had come out in the darkening sky, now visible, and Krazum no longer heeded them. The next corpse was far harder to move. Pain gave Krazum's rage strength, but the price it demanded was almost too high for him to pay.

"Pig-cunt's bastards," Krazum croaked and tore his sword arm free. His voice sounded strange and unnatural after such a long silence. The sound his sword made as it slit open the cadaver lying on top of it, on the other hand, felt like a very natural part of the situation.

His upper body thus freed, Krazum sat up and saw that he was the only living being there. He could not understand why the corpses had not been lit, but he was certainly not going to waste energy on pondering the matter. It was a long way to the nearest meeting place, and although he was not at all sure that he was going to actually find other survivors there, Krazum had to at least go and have a look.

_"Have to?"_ asked a quiet but resilient spark of despair in the depths of his mind. _"Why? Mordor has fallen. Our Lord is gone."_

"Shut your gob," Krazum barked at the dead ones as though they were somehow responsible for his weakness, and tore their bodies off his legs. Some he could not move before cutting them into smaller pieces with his knife; and with every cut he had to look away from the corpse's face for fear of recognising it.

The mound of the slain was not very high, but Krazum had trouble descending it with his weakened legs and throbbing wounds. The pain wreaking havoc inside his head only became worse as he finally stood on flat ground; he swayed, and the entire world swayed with him. The stench of blood and death hovering above everything became unbearable. Krazum drove his sword into the ground - the blade would suffer, but it would now have to help him in another way - and leaned on it as his stomach emptied swiftly and violently upon the blood-darkened battlefield. He stood for a while like that with his back bent, eyes squeezed shut as drops of bile fell out of his gasping mouth.

_"Night comes. Escape under its cover if you can."_ Just starting to move felt impossible, yet Krazum could do it. The world that was growing dark swayed to the beat of his footsteps and the blood on him, drying slowly in the night wind that was growing chill, made him tremble with cold; yet he could bear it and move faster and faster, step by step. The sword helped him with that. It would have to be sharpened later. _"Into the night to a meeting place that might very well be empty. And where do you go after that? Perhaps there are no other survivors. Perhaps you too have no right to be alive now that He..."_

"I'll heal," Krazum muttered at the whispers of despair in his head, "and come back and kill all of them. That's as good a hope as any."

As the night grew black, he arrived at last to familiar boulders and stopped to lean against the soothingly cool rocks. For a moment he felt tempted to press his burning wound against them as well, but restrained himself. He would sooner have to find clean water somewhere. There was probably none left in the caverns, but perhaps the slaves had left other supplies behind.

Krazum heard rustling at the hidden entrance, and the sound made his heart jump into his throat before he remembered that the only living beings he could expect to see there were animals. His astonishment was great indeed when from behind the rocks crawled a being that Orcs ranked only slightly higher than an animal. _"It can't be," _Krazum thought. The squirt that had been torn out of the earth too soon had managed to survive both the Dark Lord's fall and the host of the Free Peoples after all. The two survivors stared at each other awhile in a respectful silence.

"You stayed alive as well," said the squirt at last, apparently incapable of coming up with anything better.

"Well so I did," replied Krazum, but found himself unable to say it with any scorn. "Was there anything useful left in the caves?"

"A little," answered the small Orc. "I gathered everything into a couple of bags."

"Then go and get them. We'll have to make it to the meeting place before dawn comes."

Snaga disappeared swiftly behind the rocks and returned carrying the bags. At least he was quick, even though he lacked strength and was in many other ways incomplete. He had gone and lost his sword, too. Krazum would have to give him the knife off his belt in case they had to defend themselves.

Snaga helped Krazum put the other bag on his shoulder, and his nostrils dilated with the reek of blood. He stood quietly for a moment, watching Krazum thoughtfully. "The wound hurts," was his next self-evident statement. For some reason it didn't irritate Krazum. "Lean on me. Otherwise the sword will be ruined."

Truth be told, Krazum felt like laughing then. The small Orc clearly remembered the upbraiding he had received, but it didn't even occur to him to scold Krazum for the same offence. Small shows of mercy were rare among Orcs, and Krazum decided to allow himself to enjoy it. "Then let us go." He wrapped his arm over Snaga's narrow shoulders and was surprised when the small one didn't collapse immediately under his weight. They set out, and the weak one supported his superior in strength without fail.

"Snaga," Krazum muttered. A stupid name for someone who had survived his first battle. The small Orc looked at him quizzically. "I'll have to think of a better one."


End file.
